Palin comparison - the "SNL" clips: "My gut is telling me it might be a bad idea for the campaign"

Just as people questioned John McCain's judgment in selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate, one could question Palin's judgment in participating in "Saturday Night Live's" further evisceration of her character last night. Palin appeared in the show's opening sketch and in the Weekend Update segment; both featured Palin expressing wan misgivings about the direction of the material.

Said qualms were no doubt justified, and yet her presence in them endorsed their subtext anyway. It was as if Gerald Ford participated in an "SNL" sketch in which Chevy Chase portrayed him as a stumbling buffoon and agreed to trip over something. Imagine how Fox News would react had Barack Obama agreed to participate in a sketch in which he was throwing bombs alongside William Ayers, and you'll get a good idea of what Palin did to her reputation.

(If you can't see the "SNL" clip above, curse our blog server; heaven knows, I do it often enough.)

In the first, Tina Fey returned as Palin, giving her first press conference, underscoring the McCain campaign's Byzantine efforts to prevent her from talking to real journalists. Palin's spokesman essentially acknowledges her incompetence before the media by asking the reporters not to write anything down, then acquiesces to their protests, adding with a chuckle, "It was worth a shot."

Fey's Palin, who seemed to receive more ardent applause than her doppelganger, compared running mate McCain to a garbage truck dumping a load, then declared, "I'd like to entertain everyone with some fancy pageant walkin'." Cut to Palin watching the sketch on a monitor with "SNL" creator Lorne Michaels, protesting the depiction and asking, "Why couldn't we have done that '30 Rock' sketch that I wrote?" (This suggests a) Palin's savvy enough to write a comedy skit, yet b) she tends to overreach, as she did in her debate when she suggested broadening the powers of the Vice President.)

"Not enough people know that show," Michaels replies, a mild dig at Fey which no doubt provided just enough subterfuge to convince Palin that this sketch wasn't just about pole-axing her, and then Mark Wahlberg (there to protest Andy Samberg's impersonation of him in the last episode) and Alec Baldwin interrupt, their appearances again providing obfuscation from the bit's main point. Baldwin, ostensibly comically mistaking Palin for Fey, refers to Palin - to her face - as "that horrible woman," and, when he discovers his error, all he says to her is, "You are way hotter in person." Pointedly, he did not backpeddle on his political views.

He did, however, escort her to the heart of the sketch; Palin happily linked her arm in his. Given Fey's comments on Palin earlier in the week, it was also telling that Fey didn't have to so much as pose alongside Palin and smile; the two barely exchanged glances as Palin entered the sketch while Fey exited. Fey thereby avoided any charges of tacitly endorsing Palin.

Stepping to the podium, Palin announced, "I'm not going to take any of your questions," echoing her sidestepping questions during her debate with Joe Biden; instead, she delivered the requisite line: "Live, from New York..."

Palin's second appearance wasn't much more encouraging.

Taking a seat behind the "Weekend Update" desk, she informed Seth Meyers that she didn't want to do the sketch they had rehearsed: "My gut is telling me it might be a bad idea for the campaign." So, Amy Poehler performed a rap song calling McCain's smile "creepy" and poking fun at Alaskans, while Palin shook her thang and pumped her arms in the air.

(A few liberal bloggers will no doubt express outrage that Palin took part in a comedy bit that was condescending to Alaskans, but their umbrage will ring as hollow as when conservatives finally decried sexism when they decided that was the best way to combat criticism of Palin.)

God knows why, but Palin was still around at the sign-off, to receive a couple of hugs from cast members. So the best that can be said about the event is that Palin can be a good sport, because there was shockingly little in the episode to rebut charges that Palin isn't ready to lead a nation should anything happen to McCain, and her participation in it only underscored that fact. Anyone who might want to defend her will, of course, blame the elite liberal media for inducing her to participate in her own roasting. But that only suggests she has no resolve of her own, that she wasn't star-struck at the idea of appearing on an iconic TV series, damn the consequences.

She could've said, simply, "No. I won't participate in this." And, in fact, had she emerged this morning and declared, "I didn't appear on last night's episode of 'Saturday Night Live' because I felt it was demeaning to what I and my campaign with John McCain want to achieve for America," it would certainly have rallied the base and perhaps won her some empathy as she defended herself from some liberal-media bullies.

But she did appear, and she did place herself in withering sketches calling into question the sundry strategies of the McCain/Palin campaign. The best that can be said about this is, it'll be interesting to see how their campaign manages to spin this.